Testing build systems (and griping about Oracle)

Testing is not that hard once you get used to it. Testing random things is a bit harder. Testing build systems seems to be the hardest of all. There are so many interdependent things that I was thinking about using state machines to ensure that the build process works correctly. Any state machine modules on the CPAN you recommend? There are some out there, but I've no idea which area really worth the trouble.

In other news, anyone who really knows Oracle is convinced of its power because Oracle really is powerful... if you know how to tune it. Tuning Oracle is a black art that many are unfamiliar with but it pays huge dividends. Thus, for many applications Oracle can be the way to go despite its cost. Yet, for all the money that Oracle makes, why the hell can't they come up with a decent command line client? I've been working with Oracle's SQL*Plus for over a year and just a few minutes reacquainting myself with the Postgres command line client reminds me of what I was missing.

Are you hearing me Oracle? You command line client is awful. It sucks very, very hard. Yes, you have all of these neat features that are very useful, but for grunts like me, I want a tool that makes the common tasks easy. Give me autocompletion. Give me a friggin' up arrow. Give me a break.

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Are you hearing me Oracle? You command line client is awful. It sucks very, very hard. Yes, you have all of these neat features that are very useful, but for grunts like me, I want a tool that makes the common tasks easy. Give me autocompletion. Give me a friggin' up arrow. Give me a break.

There are error messages (like which line of SQL had a problem) which I get with sqlplus but not through DBI. For me that is a critical feature, since I'm generally not trying to interactively understand Oracle through the command line, but rather I'm trying to debug some SQL that is misbehaving (eg a large hunk of sql refuses to compile).

Oracle's error messages suck nearly as badly as its command line client, and I see no reason to make them suck any worse than they have to.